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Attribute for "high-muggly" areas?


Chiliconsushi

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Hello,

 

I have an idea to add a small feature to the game.

 

I noticed that some caches were in "high-muggly" areas (parks, parkings, famous places, beaches...) and were often muggled.

Therefor, TBs or Geocoins left inside often get stolen or lost.

 

The idea would be the possibility for the cache owner (or the reviewer) to add a special attribut showing that the cache is not a good place to leave TBs and/or Geocoins (or any precious thing) because of high risk of being muggled.

It could be an attribut named something like "Risky for TB".

 

I know it's close to the idea of "need maintenance" but it's not really the same, it's more to warn a player that if he leaves a TB here it has high risk of getting lost/stolen.

 

It belongs to the player who drop a TB to estimate if the area looks good but if they're tourist and don't really know the place, they can misjudge the risk.

 

Thanks for your time.

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I think you'd find it much more advantageous to include such in your cache write-up, rather than to "invent" another attribute.

Many do not understand or misuse attributes as it is. I think many more pay no attention to them whatsoever.

 

It is true also, from what I have seen, quite a few don't bother even to read the cache page before going after the cache.

 

It is admirable to let folks know that it may be a high-muggle location, I don't think an attribute would be the way to go about it.

It should be spelled out in so many words.

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Sounds like a "don't bother stopping here" attribute...

The hide probably shouldn't have been placed if that bad.

One of the many gripes about the "stealth required" attribute.

Common sense should make people realize that trackable placement would be risky.

"Needs maintenance" is used when the hide requires maintenance and has nothing to do with the hide placement or trackables.

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I think many more pay no attention to them whatsoever.

 

Really? I find attributes really helpful and are like hints to narrow searches.

 

The hide probably shouldn't have been placed if that bad.

 

This idea came to me because there is a cache in the park right to my place who is in my watchlist, and it's often muggled and TB's often get lost.

The thing is that this park is desert on week days but overcrowded with people drinking, playing music, chilling, smoking during weekends.

If cachers come during week days the place looks safe to leave precious swag, but on weekends they probably wouldn't leave these.

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The hide probably shouldn't have been placed if that bad.

This idea came to me because there is a cache in the park right to my place who is in my watchlist, and it's often muggled and TB's often get lost.

The thing is that this park is desert on week days but overcrowded with people drinking, playing music, chilling, smoking during weekends.

If cachers come during week days the place looks safe to leave precious swag, but on weekends they probably wouldn't leave these.

Like I said (and as you state also), if the cache, "is often muggled and TBs often get lost", than it's in a poor location and probably should be canned, not have a special attribute made for it.

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I think many more pay no attention to them whatsoever.

 

Really? I find attributes really helpful and are like hints to narrow searches.

 

Yes, I do believe that many do not pay attention to attributes. We find them helpful and apparently you do also.

 

But I also know that our hides use attributes AND the description warns about same (if there is something that should be warned about), yet it seems that so many simply ignore them.

 

I do think your idea has merit, I just believe putting into words is far better than using an icon. Nothing more, or less.

Edited by Gitchee-Gummee
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if the cache, "is often muggled and TBs often get lost", than it's in a poor location and probably should be canned, not have a special attribute made for it.

As cachers might not be aware of this when they discover the cache, I agree it belongs to the CO to archive his cache or hide it better...

 

The idea would be that if a lot of cachers get their TB's/GC's lost in this particular cache they should be able to ask the CO to remove it or hide it better (that's why I was talking about the "need maintenance note").

Or maybe they could flag it as "not safe for TB's/GC's"

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if the cache, "is often muggled and TBs often get lost", than it's in a poor location and probably should be canned, not have a special attribute made for it.

As cachers might not be aware of this when they discover the cache, I agree it belongs to the CO to archive his cache or hide it better...

 

The idea would be that if a lot of cachers get their TB's/GC's lost in this particular cache they should be able to ask the CO to remove it or hide it better (that's why I was talking about the "need maintenance note").

Or maybe they could flag it as "not safe for TB's/GC's"

 

I can't speak for anyone else but I'd probably filter out all caches with "Not Safe for TBs" as my mind would rewrite that as "Not Likely to be There".

In other words no attribute is really required to call out poor hides that get muggled often.

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I do think your idea has merit, I just believe putting into words is far better than using an icon. Nothing more, or less.

 

Yes but editing the description of a cache is CO's duty. And as a cache owner myself I know I like when people leave TB's because it adds a value to the cache and more people will come. I don't think a lot of CO will flag their own cache as "not safe for TB's".

 

That's why there should be a possibility for cachers who got their TB's/GC's lost in a cache to flag the cache. So next cachers will be aware that they'd better not leave precious swag here.

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I do think your idea has merit, I just believe putting into words is far better than using an icon. Nothing more, or less.

 

Yes but editing the description of a cache is CO's duty. And as a cache owner myself I know I like when people leave TB's because it adds a value to the cache and more people will come. I don't think a lot of CO will flag their own cache as "not safe for TB's".

 

That's why there should be a possibility for cachers who got their TB's/GC's lost in a cache to flag the cache. So next cachers will be aware that they'd better not leave precious swag here.

 

Managing attributes is also a CO's duty. The only attribute that a visitor can set is "Needs Maintenance", through a log. So you would really be asking for an additional log type that sets an icon.

This is akin to setting a "your cache sucks" attribute/log and I really, REALLY doubt Groundspeak would implement such a thing. There is a great hesitation to setup negative ratings type systems here.

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Yes but editing the description of a cache is CO's duty. And as a cache owner myself I know I like when people leave TB's because it adds a value to the cache and more people will come. I don't think a lot of CO will flag their own cache as "not safe for TB's".

 

That's why there should be a possibility for cachers who got their TB's/GC's lost in a cache to flag the cache. So next cachers will be aware that they'd better not leave precious swag here.

I understand where you are coming from, now. I hadn't noticed that you wished to make it available for OTHERS to add an attribute or the like.

This adds another perspective to the situation, as I highly doubt that geocaching.com or Groundspeak.com is going to allow others to alter a cache listing that is not theirs to maintain.

 

The remaining option is to note such in a log -- and take your chances upon whether or not the CO will delete that log.

 

I certainly would flag any of our caches that we did not feel it was safe to place a trackable -- but then, we don't place caches in what would be considered to be a "high muggle" area, anyway.

I do know what you mean, and I agree with such a 'label' (for lack of a better term), but many CO's are pretty darn persnickety about such things and probably would not agree with us.

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if the cache, "is often muggled and TBs often get lost", than it's in a poor location and probably should be canned, not have a special attribute made for it.

As cachers might not be aware of this when they discover the cache, I agree it belongs to the CO to archive his cache or hide it better...

 

The idea would be that if a lot of cachers get their TB's/GC's lost in this particular cache they should be able to ask the CO to remove it or hide it better (that's why I was talking about the "need maintenance note").

Or maybe they could flag it as "not safe for TB's/GC's"

There's been a couple of threads now on people using "needs maintenance" on TB/GC issues.

The CO is not responsible for the side game of trackables and "needs maintenance" does not apply.

If I was a TB/GC owner, finding my trackable missing in a cache that had a history of theft issues, I'd probably send the reviewer a note explaining that I was one of many , looking to get it (finally) archived.

If you have to put such a thing as a "not safe for Trackables" attribute on a hide, it simply shouldn't be there.

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I really, REALLY doubt Groundspeak would implement such a thing. There is a great hesitation to setup negative ratings type systems here.

 

The possibility to "favorite a cache" is a way to rate caches and paradoxically a way to spot "bad" caches without any favorite. So Groundspeak already allows that "bad feedback", somehow.

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I really, REALLY doubt Groundspeak would implement such a thing. There is a great hesitation to setup negative ratings type systems here.

 

The possibility to "favorite a cache" is a way to rate caches and paradoxically a way to spot "bad" caches without any favorite. So Groundspeak already allows that "bad feedback", somehow.

Favorites are a means to show what stands out (to you) above the rest.

If as you say, favorites showed good from bad, we'd accrue a favorite point for every cache found, instead of one in ten

Favorites are a relatively new thing and hides that have been around since this hobby started have few if any, simply because of that.

Few go back to award favorites on past hides.

I put favorites on long-archived hides - they were my favorites.

We placed a favorite on one of the last fifteen hides found.

By your reckoning, fourteen were crap? I think a few would disagree...

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I really, REALLY doubt Groundspeak would implement such a thing. There is a great hesitation to setup negative ratings type systems here.

 

The possibility to "favorite a cache" is a way to rate caches and paradoxically a way to spot "bad" caches without any favorite. So Groundspeak already allows that "bad feedback", somehow.

 

There is no "Hate a cache" option.

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if the cache, "is often muggled and TBs often get lost", than it's in a poor location and probably should be canned, not have a special attribute made for it.

As cachers might not be aware of this when they discover the cache, I agree it belongs to the CO to archive his cache or hide it better...

 

The idea would be that if a lot of cachers get their TB's/GC's lost in this particular cache they should be able to ask the CO to remove it or hide it better (that's why I was talking about the "need maintenance note").

Or maybe they could flag it as "not safe for TB's/GC's"

 

Create a Bookmark list named "not safe for TB's/GC's", make it public/shared and put the cache on it. Everyone who views the page will see that text.

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Really? I find attributes really helpful and are like hints to narrow searches.

My GPSr doesn't even show the attributes, so unless I happened to notice it at home, I'd have no idea this was an issue unless it was mentioned in the description. In addition, I agree with someone else that pointed out that "high muggle" already has an attribute, except it's called "stealth required". But, really, neither captures what you're looking for, which is really "disappears often".

 

When you think about it, TBs are just a special case of swag: even if you found a way to prevent TBs from being lost because a cache is stolen, you'd still have any swag people proudly left behind being lost, too. That seems bad, although clearly not as bad. While I agree with the other responders saying that a regularly stolen cache sounds like a problem in itself, if you don't like the idea of just getting rid of the cache, another approach is for the often lost cache to be small enough that nothing fits into it, including TBs.

 

As someone else said, there's no way they'd have a way for someone other than the CO to flag a problem like this (except in the logs), and I wouldn't want them to.

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They pretty much already have an appropriate attribute: stealth-yes.gif

That's what I was thinking. But the OP seems have an issue not that the cache requires stealth by that it is likely to go missing - along with all the travel bugs and geocoins in it. I think he is looking for a "Don't leave my travel bug in this cache" attribute.

 

The problem is deciding which caches are "good" for trackables and which aren't.

 

I would guess the likelihood of trackable being stolen from a given cache is proportional to the likelihood of the trackable getting moved from that cache over the same period. If you want your trackable to move, then you had better be ready for it to go missing. If you don't want it to go missing, then don't put it in a cache.

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I do think your idea has merit, I just believe putting into words is far better than using an icon. Nothing more, or less.

 

Yes but editing the description of a cache is CO's duty. And as a cache owner myself I know I like when people leave TB's because it adds a value to the cache and more people will come. I don't think a lot of CO will flag their own cache as "not safe for TB's".

 

That's why there should be a possibility for cachers who got their TB's/GC's lost in a cache to flag the cache. So next cachers will be aware that they'd better not leave precious swag here.

 

Really? Precious swag? Just what are people leaving behind in these caches?

 

It's a shame when caches disappear but seriously, if you're that worried about the "precious swag" don't leave it in a cache.

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Really? Precious swag? Just what are people leaving behind in these caches?

 

It's a shame when caches disappear but seriously, if you're that worried about the "precious swag" don't leave it in a cache.

 

By "precious swag" I mean TB's and GC's.

I don't know if you own TB's or GC's but they have a certain value. If you own only 10 of them it costs you something like $40. So... yeah, it can be "precious" in a way.

How do you want TB's/GC's to travel if you don't put them in caches?

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Really? Precious swag? Just what are people leaving behind in these caches?

 

It's a shame when caches disappear but seriously, if you're that worried about the "precious swag" don't leave it in a cache.

 

By "precious swag" I mean TB's and GC's.

I don't know if you own TB's or GC's but they have a certain value. If you own only 10 of them it costs you something like $40. So... yeah, it can be "precious" in a way.

How do you want TB's/GC's to travel if you don't put them in caches?

I think what they mean is put out trackables with the full expectation that they will become lost - rather than expecting them to survive for a long time.

 

I know 80% of my TBs are gone. I stopped worrying about who had them or where as long as they moved around as little as 1 time per year to show signs of 'life'.

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Really? Precious swag? Just what are people leaving behind in these caches?

 

It's a shame when caches disappear but seriously, if you're that worried about the "precious swag" don't leave it in a cache.

 

By "precious swag" I mean TB's and GC's.

I don't know if you own TB's or GC's but they have a certain value. If you own only 10 of them it costs you something like $40. So... yeah, it can be "precious" in a way.

How do you want TB's/GC's to travel if you don't put them in caches?

 

Of course they have a value but if you're worried about the value you probably shouldn't be releasing them.

 

I figure by the time I've bought a tag and put something on it a travel bug costs me about £5. When I release a TB I regard it as like taking a £5 note out of my wallet, making a paper plane out of it and launching it from a tall building just to see where it ends up.

 

If I left a £5 note on the ground outside I wouldn't be surprised if it had gone by morning. If I leave £5 worth of stuff in a random box under a dead tree somewhere why should I be any more surprised if it disappears at some point?

 

I've released a few TBs, most have gone missing. It happens. If you don't want to risk it going missing don't release it. Most of my TBs went missing when someone took them and then apparently stopped caching, and ignored my request to return them (I offered to pay the postage but still got no reply)

 

Any cache can get muggled, any TB can go missing or be lost/stolen, it's just a hazard of leaving something in a box somewhere.

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